Google Photos

A couple days back we talked a bit about reports that some Google Home users were seeing some new features turn up, but those new features weren't officially announced. The new features include integration for controlling Netflix and Google Photos using your voice. Google has now made the announcement official that Netflix support is here for Google Home.

When Amazon Echo first launched, very few knew what to make of the canister smart speaker of the future. Eventually, however, it bloomed and soon became the buzzword of smart home hubs. That same pattern might be repeated with the Google Home, which is only now starting to become rather interesting. Although it hasn’t been officially acknowledged yet, some Google Home owners have reported that they’re starting to see Netflix and Google Photos in a new Videos and Photos section for Google Assistant.

An update to the Google Photos app collection has suddenly made Google the master at capturing long-lost memories in vintage photos. Google's newest app in this collection of photo-friendly apps is PhotoScan, an app that's set for action on both Android and iOS. This app allows users to "scan" their photos with their smartphone in a way which allows the device's processor to edit out curves, bends, glossy reflections, and other oddities.

Most people prefer to use their smartphones, even if less capable, over cameras to take pictures because of two reasons primarily. One, smartphones are almost always readily available and always with you. Second is because it’s a lot easier to share them directly off your phone than through a camera. The latest Google Photos update has made that even a lot easier, maybe even lazier. Now you can share with people more directly rather than wasting time trying to juggle sharing with apps.

Last June, Google introduced the (strangely) iOS-only Motion Stills app that brought some stability to the otherwise mostly shaky Live Photos feature on Apple’s platform. While it did create some fascinating GIFs, it had one major flaw. It was a different, somewhat obscure app that users had to first know about before they could install. Google has now addressed that issue, ironically killing Motion Stills in the process. Yes, Google Photos has been updated to bake that feature into the app itself. Presuming, of course, you also have it installed in the first place.

Smartphones these days, even the lower spec ones, are capable of taking high resolution (though not always high quality) photos. That means those photos take up more space on the smartphone's storage. And when you have a measly 16 GB of internal memory, with no microSD card option, you will inevitably run out of space. That is precisely the point that Google is trying to make in a rare and admittedly amusing Google Photos video ad. And it is aiming its guns at, what else, the 16 GB iPhone.

Earlier this month, Google pushed out an update for Google Photos on Android, and now it has followed it up with an update for iOS, taking that app up to version 1.12.1. The update is a relatively small one, though it’ll prove useful for most users: there’s a new cropping tool, which is the big change, as well as some “improved support” for taking photos in a burst. The app is available from the iTunes store now.

Moto Z Droid Edition's free 2-year Original Quality Google Photos storage should come with a more apparent disclaimer. As we've spoken of on more than one occasion before, no free cloud storage-based gift is ever really free. There's always a reason why you'll want to take a second glance at what happens when your temporary free storage has expired. In this case, it has to do with Gmail, believe it or not.

While it began life much earlier as part of the Google+ social network, it's now been one full year since Google Photos was launched as an individual cloud-based photo storage service. To celebrate, Google has shared some stats on the service to highlight its rapid growth, most notable is a user count of over 200 million, an impressive figure for just 12 months.

Original Quality Photos and Video uploads and backups to Google Photos may be the reason you want a Nexus smartphone in the near future. Google's latest APK for the app Google Photos has mention of a promotion which includes just that - a promo for Nexus smart devices specifically. "With Nexus, back up all you want," says the APK, "Unlimited free storage for original quality photos and videos uploaded from your Nexus device."

Today I received a rather rude awakening - after years of abusing the space Google had given me for online storage, my ticket had come up. I'd been uploading files to places like Google Drive and Google Photos at full resolution, without a care in the world, doing so every day, automatically, without a care in the world! The mortality of this freedom became all too real to me today. Today, Google gave me a rather scary warning. If I didn't make some space, they'd stop my emails.

Google is updating Photos with a couple of new features, the most notable of which is the ability to leave comments on shared albums. Shared albums, of course, are photo albums that more than one person have access to; anyone with whom the album was shared can add their own photos to it, making the commenting feature a welcomed addition. As of now, users who are part of the album can leave a comment for the album itself or a specific photograph within it.